Pokemon Moments: Short Stories of Anton
by Jojiro
Summary: A collection of short stories about and from Pokemon Scientist Anton Bokanov. All are from his life, though not necessarily chronological. The first is about a Wobbuffet in a time of need, the second about a well-known rivalry in Hoenn, the third about one of the Gym Leaders he knows well...
1. Chapter 1: Wobbuffet

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokémon.

* * *

_This short piece was based on the Sapphire Dex entry for Wobbuffet: Wobbuffet does nothing but endure attacks - it won't attack on its own. However, it won't endure an attack on its tail. It's based on Guodon's drawing of Wobbuffet (search Guodon Wobbuffet and you'll find it):_

Enjoy.

* * *

Wobbuffet does nothing but endure. And so, when his trainer doesn't show, Wobbuffet stays, faithfully holding his umbrella well into the afternoon.

Laughs resound. His crooked mouth and absurdly bulbous head no doubt make him quite the unintentional joke. Nobody quite crosses the line to touch him, to tease his black tail (they all remember what he did when _that _last happened), but nonetheless, the jeers exist on the fringes.

"So that's _his _Pokémon? Guess even he's got to have a single friend."

Wobbuffet's hearing is better than most, courtesy of his stillness, perhaps. So he hears this out of the uninspired mess of cruel comments being made and stores it away in his memory. Forgetting it might mean losing everything. It might mean losing nothing. Wobbuffet doesn't know, but the memory becomes as solid and real and important as the umbrella he's holding.

He endures, but he isn't stolidly loyal, of course; no good friend really is if they're honest. He agrees with the comments that the bright yellow is an unfitting color for a boy's parasol. Still, it is his master's umbrella, and for all that Wobbufet doesn't quite agree with the color, it's a minor quibble.

Few people remember that Wobbuffet is a Psychic Pokémon, but as the afternoon turns to evening, and the evening turns to night, he senses a shift in the school's atmosphere.

He's no Gardevoir, but when the entire school is empty save for a few sorry souls, he's able to pinpoint their emotions. Hot and heavy in the upstairs bathroom. Overtime boredom in the teacher's lounge. There are a few rats as well: nobody said that being an empath gave you the most interesting insights. And lastly his master, on the roof, indecisive, worried.

If one were observant, they'd see Wobbuffet's worried frown deepen a tad, and a small amount of strain present itself upon his countenance. One Joltik _is_ observant, and sees all this, but Joltik are rather 'in-the-moment' creatures, so it rapidly goes back to looking for skin flakes in the students' shoes.

Finally, as the school bell tower strikes ten, his master comes down from the roof. Alive and via the stairs.

"It was you, wasn't it?"

Wobbuffet doesn't acknowledge. He only endures.

"It was **YOU**."

The Joltik scutters away, because anger is a sort of electricity too, and it knows when a storm is coming.

"You and your damn **Shadow Tag**! No escape, is it? No letting go? No _EASY_ WAY OUT? Who asked you, damn it! Who asked you to stick your nose into my business, my life, my right to make _choices_! You're so damn possessive, and I don't even know it's you doing it until-"

The boy cuts off his rant to hyperventilate. Wobbuffet is a bit curious as to how his sentence will end, but it never does; the boy snatches the umbrella and stalks off into the rain.

Wobbuffet doesn't question, or accuse. He endures.

The footsteps stop, and for a second there is just the pitter patter of rain on the umbrella. It's all very melodramatic.

"Sorry."

It's barely audible, it's chipped like a failed sculpture, it's the result of all the hate the school has piled on him, and it still has the sharp bite of accusation.

Wobbufet doesn't comment.

"And thank you."

And then, Wobbufet turns. Pokémon and master, returning home after a long day at school.

His master can't tell, but when his lips curl into a slight smile, Wobbufet does notice.

"Fet."

Sometimes endurance pays off.

* * *

Jojiro's Note:

Of Wobbuffet's four moves, I imagine Safeguard is the only one which isn't a move; it's a lifestyle, and one which any trainer worth his or her salt appreciates.


	2. Chapter 2: Zangoose & Seviper

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokémon.

* * *

_This short piece was based on amaneko5's drawing of Seviper and Zangoose (search amaneko5 seviper and you'll find it):_

Enjoy.

* * *

The Zangoose - Seviper rivalry is well-known to anyone past grade school in Hoenn, even if you live in a part of the nation where the two do not exist. They make a dynamic duo in children's stories, are referenced when describing dysfunctional couples, are referenced when describing functional couples, are taken up symbolically by rival gangs, and provide any floundering tour guide of Hoenn with something to talk about to foreigners.

* * *

As the clang of tooth on claw rang out through Fallarbor Valley, Anton shuddered. The real thing was a whole different beast from the tall tales and the analogies.

Of course, he wasn't actually scared. He'd seen what Pokémon could do to each other before, and his team of two would protect him if things got rough. No. He was shuddering from the sheer cold. It almost never snowed up by Mt. Chimney, but this year the sky was raining ash and flurries of ice. It was quite miserable.

He peeked out from behind his hiding place, a rather respectable boulder, and immediately shrunk back.

The Zangoose was bleeding out, for Arceus's sake! It was clearly losing, and yet it was still fighting for who knows what reason, when it could get away scot-free. Everyone knew that Seviper was rubbish for chasing things. Its sole speed factor was in its lunge, and the Zangoose was giving the viper plenty of opportunity to make use of this.

Of course, above all else Anton was a scientist, and in that single peek he'd already realized that the engorged Seviper in question must be the one they talked about in town, the queen of the area both in terms of size and battle experience, definitely female judging from the length of the tail blade. It really was quite oddly fat, even for such a large snake. The Zangoose was also likely to be female, and it was intermittently letting out distress calls. That was strange. Zangoose were almost ridiculously independent and only let out distress calls when immediate family was in danger. Which meant...

A vicious Poison Tail tore through the Zangoose, and then the Pokémon hung limp.

A vicious realization tore through Anton in the same moment, and then he too felt his body go limp. But it was too late. He could only watch now, the conclusion foregone.

A rough shake. A tongue, probing for signs of life. A mournful and yet triumphant hiss. And then the snake slithered away, prize speared like a kebab on its tail.

It took some careful scouring, but sure enough, Anton managed to find a den within a nearby snowdrift, and within it he found the reason the Zangoose had stayed to fight so long: a whimpering baby.

* * *

Anton had never particularly been good at programming, and as an aspiring Pokémon researcher what that left for him was Pokémon behavior. In order to facilitate this, he'd specialized in Psychics, which could give him insights into the minds of the creatures he studied. He'd borrowed a reserve Gardevoir from the Weather Institute Laboratory, and he himself had a Mr. Mime.

Mimesy had immediately taken to the baby, and Anton quickly found his small apartment in Fallarbor filled with invisible cradles and chew-toys which his Pokémon had fashioned from thin air. Latent talent, Anton decided, was far less fascinating when you tripped over it regularly.

He was quite willing to stay until the Zangoose would be able to take care of itself. And there was hardly a lack of projects in Fallarbor. After writing the Weather Institute requesting permission to do his research on-site rather than collecting samples, he settled in for the long haul. Spinda patterns were faxed to the Weather Institute for analysis, Slugma were captured and selectively dyed, and then the videos of how the dye circulated through them were saved and sent to the Institute. Mimesy would keep the Pokémon still, Gardevoir would relay him their thoughts.

...it was mostly a mindless drone about food for the Slugma, and Spinda mental processes were so logically fallacious that they gave him a headache.

He was pleasantly surprised to find one of his articles on Slugma circulation in a minor journal, especially as the Weather Institute published mostly meteorological studies.

Pity, really. But the days passed quickly and pleasantly.

It was, as Gardevoir noted,  
"An unusually relaxing allotment of time for such a fast-paced person as yourself."

* * *

A crash came, a growl, and another crash, and Anton rushed out of his apartment to see the Zangoose, pinned within a small crater by an unseen Psychic force. It was winded, and furious.

Gardevoir hovered a few feet above the downed Zangoose, looking coldly upon it.

"What did you do THAT for?"

The cool gaze turned to him, and a chill ran up his spine, as the Pokémon's voice penetrated his mindscape.

_We were doing a meditative exercise. I was probing his mind and let down my own mental barriers. He caught a glimpse of his mother dying and recognized her. He proceeded to go berserk._

She nodded down to the hem of her torn dress, which was already re-mending itself.

_The rascal did that._

Zangoose growled something from where he lay, and the Psychic pressure disappeared.

A few more growls, softer this time. Gardevoir cocked her head.

_He wants a relay into your head, Anton._

Before he could agree or disagree, he felt a tingling in the back of his mind, and suddenly he was seeing the world through two sets of eyes: his own, and those of the Zangoose. And he could hear the Zangoose's thoughts, which were far more furious than that of any Pokémon whose head he had been in before.

**_Let me fight the snake._**

Furious, but calm, Anton thought with a degree of surprise.

**_I will avenge my mother. That serpent. I will KILL MAIM DESTROY BLIND RIP TO SHREDS BULLDOZE-_**

Scratch that.

He winced as the connection was cut, and looked at the hate-filled eyes he'd just been seeing through seconds before. The Zangoose couldn't have been just a few days old when his mother died. If this much hate spawned from such a weak memory, then no wonder the Zangoose had a feud with the Seviper. It was surprising they didn't have a fewd with every single other living being out there too from other overblown grudges.

And was "bulldoze" supposed to be in ANY wild, adolescent mammal's vocabulary?

* * *

Anton had actually seen the Seviper slithering around during his tenure in Fallarbor. She was hard to miss, with her enormous body and her sleek scales, shining even amidst the heaviest ashfall. She'd grown slimmer for a time, which had concerned him, so he'd even told his Mr. Mime to place a Psychic trace on the snake.

Mimesy could still trace the snake, a year later. Maybe the "super effective" label worked for all things Psychic against all things Poison.

At any rate, tracking down the serpent was no problem whatsoever.

The fight, on the other hand, was pathetic. Anton had asked Zangoose to let itself be caught in a Poké Ball. That way, if the fight went awry, he could recall him before he got too damaged. Or eaten.

Zangoose had let loose with a Fury Cutter that successfully tickled the snake. Seeing that the attack had no effect, it proceeded to stumble about. It was probably an attempt at Swords Dance, though it was so graceless it might have been a Teeter Dance copied from a local Spinda. Hard to tell.

Seviper had seemed bemused, and with a flick of its tail Zangoose had had his head stuck in the ground.

Anton had recalled him.

_**Train me to bulldoze the snake. **_

Anton glared at the Pokémon.

"You can't possibly beat that thing. It's five times your size and is probably the strongest Pokémon in the area. In the ten months we've been here, not a single creature out there has challenged it for supremacy. And where did you learn that wor-"

**_I will kill it. I will kill it I will kill it I will kill it I will kill it I will kill it I will kill it hate hate hate hatehatehatehatehatehate-_**

"Mimesy, give me an aspirin."

* * *

Zangoose and Seviper stared each other down.

There was a flurry of movement, a rough scuffle, a sharp scraping sound as the Zangoose raked his claws against the snake's skin.

Then all of a sudden Seviper let out an ear-piercing shriek that Anton didn't even _KNOW _ a Seviper could make, and Zangoose fell, clutching his ears.

He was recalled just as a Poison Tail sliced through where he had been standing.

* * *

Zangoose and Seviper stared each other down.

Apparently there was some sort of hypnosis technique the Seviper was using with its eyes, because Zangoose suddenly keeled over.

He was recalled, and Anton banged his head against the Poké Ball.

So he missed how his Gardevoir and the Seviper met each other's eyes.

* * *

Zangoose and Seviper stared each other down.

Zangoose used Agility, speeding up to the point where Anton could barely see him.

Seviper lunged out, plunging his fangs into Zangoose's stomach with no visible effort. Anton managed to recall his Pokémon before the fangs sank in too deep.

Thank Arceus for Zangoose's inherent poison Immunity ability.

* * *

"Your Zangoose has Toxic Boost, a rare ability found in one out of every six hundred Zangoose." Nurse Joy chirped.

It should be noted that Anton rarely cursed.

* * *

As expected, Zangoose's room was utterly trashed, the result of his leftover energy from being poisoned. It had taken both Gardevoir and Mr. Mime to trap and sedate him.

An amplification of adrenalin effect in the presence of toxins, Anton decided, was one hell of a stupid evolutionary adaption. This decision was made in conjunction with the Pokémon Center's decision to pay for the damage using all of Anton's remaining grant money.

A month of intensive training passed before Anton would let the Zangoose even try to fight Seviper again after the hospital fiasco. By then, a year had passed since Anton had first entered the valley, and much to his surprise, it snowed again.

The showdown was eerily reminiscent of the first battle Anton had seen; Zangoose had now reached adult size.

The snake and the mongoose Pokémon stared each other down, and lunged.

* * *

**_It doesn't feel right._**

_Revenge never does._

_**You've been through this too, haven't you?**_

_Yes._

**_...why did you let me do it?_**

Gardevoir sighed. It was the same question Anton had asked her after they'd killed the snake, and they'd found her hatchlings. He'd berated her for allowing the whole thing to continue when she knew that the Seviper had hatchlings waiting in the nest. He'd berated himself too. He should have known that the Seviper had given birth. All the signs had been there...

_**Why?**_

Gardevoir considered, and decided to go with the truth.

_She knew that your mother had given birth to you as well, when she took your mother's life. Fair's fair._

There was a moment of shocked silence, and Gardevoir could see the anger returning. No, that would not do.

_The two winters which you've been through here have both shown you snow. That's not…typical at all of this region. For a mother, the resulting scarcity of food is beyond mere hardship; it's a threat to the lives of her children..._

Gardevoir fixed Zangoose with her ruby gaze, sharp and probing.

_So don't judge so harshly. Would you not have killed anyone for food, if you were a mother?_

Sullen silence. A throaty growl of frustration from the Normal, and a sigh from the Psychic. A rustle of fabric on wood. Gardevoir was gone.

It was hard to nod in response to death.

* * *

Night found the Zangoose standing above the corpse of the Seviper, still in the snowdrift where the great snake had finally fallen.

Anton saw, and would have approached, if his Gardevoir had not stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a shake of the head.

And so they watched as the Zangoose stared into the sky, and cried out in anguish. They watched as the anguish turned to rebellion, and then merely sadness. They watched as the cries turned to short, panted promises, the last of which Gardevoir translated.

They watched as a Zangoose became an adult.

_**"I will train your children, as you have trained me."**_

It was the appropriate thing to say to a rival.


	3. Chapter 3: Falkner

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokémon.

* * *

_This short piece was based on shouji_ni_nanshi's drawing of Hayato (Falkner):_

Enjoy.

* * *

His father always said that the sky was where a man's heart was destined.

"We were born angels without wings," he'd say, and Falkner believed him.

Falkner's first flight, on his father's Skarmory, was a memory he would cherish forever. The rush of air and adrenalin, the rush of a soul freed from the confines of the earth, the sheer power of the bird beneath him, cutting through the atmosphere like a knife through butter.

Falkner loved his father. It was partially due to the absence of a mother figure, partially due to his father's innate passion which he applied to everything in his life.

"Bird masters used to wear ceremonial tunics representing the blue of the sky," his father told him, "Not those silly outfits bird-catchers wear now."

"Birds aren't meant for cages, they're meant to be free," his father told him.

"They're meant to fly."

So many hints, all of them on a clock, ticking downward, and yet Falkner never realized that his fathers lessons were all apologies, a downward spiral to an inevitable goodbye.

And so when his father disappeared one morning without even a note, Falkner was left in shock. He notified no one; the nurses found him in his sky-blue tunic, curled up in a corner, whispering to himself over and over, "Dad, was I your cage?"

He hadn't slept or eaten for three days.

* * *

For the longest time, Falkner was the quietest kid in the orphanage. The other kids were put off by his high-quality clothing, his crisp etiquette, and his constant relapses into depression. The adults didn't know what to make of his eyes, which never seemed to look at anyone, but through them, and up, up, up, into the sky.

Eventually he stopped communicating altogether.

He was eleven when he escaped from the orphanage, and it caused the whole of Violet City to fly into a panic. No matter how strange he was, no matter how rash his father had been, to leave the Gym abandoned and the town without protection, Falkner was still the son of the city's greatest trainer and hero! They had to find him…and find him they did.

He stood in the fields, surrounded by crooning Pidgey and their more mature evolutions. The Jenny who found him said that she couldn't approach the boy, there were so many birds. She'd never seen anything like it.

"A circular field of down and feathers, and him in the center, basking in the moonlight."

He returned from that escape full of conviction.

Falkner joined the police force and in short order turned Violet City into the city with the lowest crime rate in the entire region of Johto. He led them from the sky, first carried by a flock of Pidgey, then by a Pidgeotto, then finally by his Pidgeot, by then as in tune with him as a Psychic.

His Pidgeot was full grown when he re-opened the Gym.

He wasn't a good leader, even if his training skills were superb. His tactics were the chiseled instincts of a fighter used to the brutality of the police force and the downright lack of fair play from Team Rocket. He tried to change, but his heart was never into it. His eyes stayed viciously sharp and every 'development' in his fighting style either made it more awkward or more vicious. Then one day he saw a child, driven to tears after a battle with him, whose father rushed into the gym to comfort him.

* * *

The Gym was closed for a month.

* * *

When the Violet City Gym opened yet again, Falkner seemed like a different person. He held back. He used growing birds with carefully non-offensive tactics. His birds became known for kicking up mud instead of blowing up terrifying winds. "Mud-Slap Falkner", they called him in jest.

He responded by developing a TM for that very move.

Eventually, the word on the street became that Falkner was a pushover. That he and Bugsy were where to start on the Gym circuit, because they were the rookies, the inexperienced ones. "Easy". Of course, there were also the people of Violet, who remembered the boy that led their police force. So whispers also existed that he had dark secrets, that he was unbalanced, that he'd never gotten over his abandonment. One day a young woman who'd known Falkner back in his orphanage days came across him and accused him of "Roosting in his den like a right old owl, watching us all under those bangs of yours!" She said other things to, but Falkner tended not to care about his repute on the grapevine.

The bird analogy, though, he was interested in, and soon his Gym had a new TM to its name.

People started to even call him some sort of mad scientist, though of course TM-development was hardly difficult with the resources of a Gym. And Falkner wasn't interested in dispersing the rumors that he wasn't fine. People would believe what they would believe.

* * *

The Jennys know that Falkner is fine. The entire police force does. He healed, that night, in the meadow.

"You haven't seen the talks he gives the criminals after he puts them in prison. You haven't seen him nursing his birds' wings after every battle. You didn't see him, on that field, that night, with a little Pidgey on his fingertips, smiling like Christmas had come early."

Falkner isn't a pushover, or filled with some unresolved past. He's found his calling in his birds.

"Falkner is the gentlest of the Gym Leaders. He was an angel without wings, and now he's found them."


End file.
